THE BRAVE NEW LAND

Through ruins from not too long ago, I descend into a glen daily on my way to teach. The way leads me past an Arab artifice now destroyed, Christians who built a mosque for visitors now gone. The way leads onto a path between cacti, grown to each side and interspersed with carob, straw, and incense. Oak sings down below, I always know, as I walk down step over step to the work I’m learning to know; but … this time was different. Tingles I felt from the sides of my path, tickling me along arms, cheeks, and brain. Something was different, something was wrong. Looking down I saw nothing, looking down there was nothing to see; just tingling in my mind. My sense and learning said spiders, but nothing was to be found. I wiped the sensations away each and every time, but remembered it to teach as I finished walking down to my new norm, that morn. Arriving at school I met students willing themselves to learn, and spoke of my walk down to school and said more, or less, not too sure. For, I re

The water did not flow. It was too dry to play. So, we sat in the bowl all that hot and unhappy day. I sat there with Love. We sat there and stewed. And I thought for us both, “How I wish we weren’t on the menu!” It was too dry to get out and too warm to stay in, so we sat in the bowl doing nothing at all. All we could do was to: float! Float! Float! Float! Love and I did not like it, a tidbit not even. And then something went SQUISH! How that ‘squish’ made us flip! We looked! Then we saw it; we looked and we saw it step in with us! The upright walker! It stepped into the bowl with us, only to sink ...    For a printable PDF download of the rest, click:  doronoll.com/garden-stories